As
I’m sure you’ll realize if you stay with these articles I came to be very
fond of Franklin as one of its residents after moving there late in 1991. In
fact, although born in East Cleveland and having spent most of my life in the
greater Cleveland area, I never felt more at home living anywhere else. If I
believed in reincarnation, and I don’t, I might have thought I either once
lived there in a former life or maybe fought there wearing blue. While I never
doubted what side I would have been on in the Civil War, I did come to have a
much better understanding of those who fought the war defending their
land.

Shortly after moving into our home in the shadow of Roper’s Knob, Elaine and
I enrolled in a class at the Franklin Recreation Center entitled, “The Civil
War In Williamson County.” A local historian –a professional genealogist -
who grew up in the area taught this class. He prided himself on being a
contrarian – hence “Civil War” and not “War Between the States” in
the title for his class. He deemed his role, in terms of history, to debunk
what is called in the south, “Moonlight and Magnolias” – the romantic
-view of its history to the point of mythology. At the time of the class he
was working on a book to be called “The Counterfeit Confederacy” which was
to provide truth where there was myth. (He had already written a book tracing
the genealogy of Elvis Presley.)

We were pleased to learn the enrollment for the class included locals as well
as newcomers like us – making it more of a discussion group than a class.
Some of the locals had taken the class several times and functioned as
assistant instructors, adding stories of their own about their families
experiences living in the area.

One particularly interesting man was a doctor in his early sixties who told
the story of Franklin’s headless corpse. On Christmas Eve, 1977 the body of
a headless young man was found near an open grave dressed in a tuxedo with a
ruffled shirt. The police initially thought the open grave near the victim was
dug to bury and hide the body. The medical examiner estimated the deceased,
measured at five feet eleven inches, weighing 175 pounds and in his mid
twenties, to have recently died. The head found nearby the grave told them the
victim had died from severe trauma to the head. Enough evidence was found to
lead the Chief Deputy to declare, “It looks like we have a homicide on our
hands.” (The doctor in our class was one of those who examined the
body.)

However some weeks later after extensive laboratory tests, the body was
identified and the mystery was solved – it was Lt. Colonel William M. Shy of
the Confederate army. He was embalmed so well that 113 years after his death
some of his skin was still pinkish. (Our class’ doctor told us the chemical
content of the body was almost all arsenic which was used for embalming in
those days. The arsenic content even had the examiners considering poisoning
at one point. The skin was as pliable as if Shy had just died, the doctor
said.) Apparently pranksters or grave robbers looking for relics had dug up
Shy’s cast iron casket, breaking it open and pulling him out before
abandoning their work that Christmas Eve. The good Colonel was reburied in a
new casket in January 1978. His original casket, which looks like some of
those barrels people used to use to go over Niagara Falls, was on display in
the museum at the Carter House where we were able to see it. However it was no
longer on display the last time I was there.

Colonel Shy, commanding six Tennessee regiments died defending a tree covered
hill south of Nashville the second day of that battle December 16, 1864.
Refusing to surrender as the hill was being over run with blue coats, the 26
year old colonel was shot at point blank range with the slug entering the
front of his head just above his right eye and exiting with a large piece of
his skull and other matter at the rear. (The medical examiner did get the
severe head trauma part right.) The colonel was a hero. That hill became known
as Shy’s Hill – still somewhat wooded but also filled with houses today.
(This story was also briefly included in Wiley Sword’s book, “The
Confederacy’s Last Hurrah,” originally published sometime in 1992 as “Embrace
an Angry Wind.” Mr. Sword spoke at the Carter House that year. Sword quotes
the “Shy” medical examiner, who had to be embarrassed at his initial
assessments, as saying when the facts were finally known, “I got the age,
sex, weight and height right, but I was off on the time of death by 113 years.”
At least it didn’t hurt his sense of humor. I wonder too if Colonel Shy
believed in reincarnation? (The “Blue and Gray” magazine in its December
1993 article on the Battle of Nashville features the Shy story including
pictures on page 49.)

Colonel Shy, buried in the back yard of his parents’ home in Franklin was of
course not the casualty of the war to be buried in Williamson County. Almost
all of the rebels killed in the battle of Franklin were originally buried on
the battlefield immediately after the battle. In April 1866, John and Caroline
(called Carrie) McGavock donated two acres of their Carnton Plantation land
just outside town for a cemetery. Carrie (the notion of fragile southern
belles is one of those myths) led the work that would see the disinterment and
reburied of 1481 bodies within sight of her home where they still rest with
honor today. She documented the work in a small book identifying wherever
possible each body and its grave. This book is on display at Carnton which is
open to the public.

The Carnton mansion was built in 1826 by Randal McGavock, father of John, the
year after he ended his term as mayor of Nashville. In its day it was one of
the finest estates in the area, noted for fine horses and political
gatherings. Andrew Jackson, James Polk and Sam Houston are said to have
enjoyed the hospitality of Carnton. In 1864, Hood’s forces crossed its land
to engage the federals to the east of Columbia Road. After the battle, it
became a hospital with John and Carrie turning over all but one room of the
house to the wounded. Surgery was performed by candlelight and then daylight
near upstairs windows. Stories are told of amputated limbs stacked near the
home. Reddish spots near these windows today are said to be blood from these
operations. And it’s at Carnton where many believe the bodies of the five
confederate generals killed in the battle were said to have been laid on its
rear porch. Our contrarian instructor claims that story is a myth, claiming
through his research to have traced what happened to the body of each dead
general proving their remains never visited the home.

The house and land were not treated well in the last century even to the point
of being used to house animals until in the 1970s until a corporation was
formed to save and then restore the home and its surroundings. That work was
well along when we first visited the home but it has advanced at a much more
rapid rate since that time. It was interesting to see it while many rooms were
in a somewhat raw or unfinished state but even more so now that most of the
home has been restored so well. This was always one of the first places we
would take visitors, passing the cemetery as we drove unto the property and
then along its dirt road leading to the mansion – “up the road a piece.”
Unlike some other fine homes in the area, Carnton with open land around it
gives one the best feel for what it was like in those antebellum days to visit
a fine estate.

I’ll tell you the story of Franklin’s Hanging Tree in the next
installment.

CarntonThrough
Carnton's fields,
past its mansion
and their way of life
the Gray marched -
towards Franklin,
the Blue, the Red
and for many...
the end of their lives.
Carnton -
their last plantation.
To her care
many would return.
First the wounded
and then - the dead. Embracing them then,
holding them now.
Carnton -
a memorial
to the old south
and those who gave
their lives to save it.
Mel Maurer
June, 1993